


light of my life

by brucewaynery



Series: iron man bingo fills [13]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Baby Peter Parker, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Humor, M/M, Superfamily (Marvel), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, well toddler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 14:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20244229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: Peter can't sleep so Steve makes shadow puppets using Tony's arc reactor.for 'superfamily' on iron man bingo





	light of my life

Steve’s awoken by Peter’s cries for the third time in as many nights. Lately, he’s been having a hard time, so they’ve moved his crib into their room. They know that he’s a little too old, at just over a year and a half, to be in their room at night, but he’s been having nightmares and he always sleeps better in their room. Just until this passes. Neither Steve nor Tony can handle hearing him in pain and crying.

Steve gets out of bed as stealthily as he can without waking Tony up - he deserves the rest - and lifts Peter out of the crib, untangling him from his blankets (Iron Man themed, of course) as he does.

“Hey, baby,” Steve whispers, easily holding him in the crook of his arm and rocking him lightly. Peter stops crying for a millisecond in confusion, before starting up again, hiccuping in his efforts.

“Hey, hey, you’re good, you’re okay, darling,” Steve carries on, walking around the room with him, sometimes Peter likes to stare out the window-wall, sometimes to the city below, sometimes up at the sky. On one incredibly adorable occasion, he’d stared at his reflection in the window in wonder, on another, during a storm, he’d cheered and laughed whenever lightning struck.

Today, neither city nor sky were good enough.

Peter carried on crying, tiny face red and screwed up as he glared up at Steve. “Okay, okay, buddy, we all have bad days, huh.” He’s almost amazed at how long Peter’s tiny lungs could sustain that level of noise.

Walking did nothing, his toys had all been thrown out of the crib, and when Steve tried to hand one back to him, Peter threw it in his face, and the window did jackshit, so Steve sat back down on his side of the bed and just gently rocked Peter, talking to him quietly.

“It’s a surprise you haven’t woken your daddy up yet,” Steve starts, sometimes just talking to him calms him down, and, thankfully, it seems to be working. Somewhat. Peter’s stopped crying, but he still looks sad and worried, and he’s whimpering.

“Daddy?” Peter repeats, grasping at Steve’s shirt. Even though this is far from the first time Peter’s spoke, it’s still new enough that Steve feels proud every time he does.

“Yeah, that guy over there,” Steve says, softly, twisting himself to face his still-sleeping husband. “You might know him,” he carries on, “you ‘n him are tied for my best guy.”

The whimpering stops, replaced by what Steve likes to think as ‘thoughtful hums’ and Tony calls’ baby noises’ - doesn’t stop him from asking JARVIS to record it every time he makes them. Maybe his child is smart, he does, after all, have one of the smartest people on the planet as a father.

“‘S true kid, he’s the best man I know, and you’re my favourite toddler,” in all honesty, Steve doesn’t really know what he’s saying, but Peter’s calmer, so something’s working.

He spoke-- thought, too soon. Peter starts waving his arms, the very last thing from drowsy, not in distress, though, just over Tony. Over his reactor, breaking him the light shining up. Steve smiles, a proverbial light bulb going off in his head.

A long time ago, when he’d been too weak and too sick to move, Bucky and him had come up with a bunch of shadow puppets, and a slightly less long time ago, he and the Howlies, bored out of their minds, made lewd shadow puppets out of the dying campfire. He still remembers most of them.

Steve crosses his legs and lays Peter in his lap, gently bouncing his knee. Peter gurgles. Steve kisses him on his forehead, “You better sleep after this,” he murmurs, smiling. Peter blinks in what Steve hopes is a promise.

Steve points up at the ceiling and begins forming various animals with one hand until Peter’s staring up at the light and not at him. Most of the puppets he knows are animals, so he makes the noises to go with them quietly, stealing a glance at Tony to make sure that he’s still fast asleep.

Peter giggles, pointing up and then looking at Steve in wonder. “Bird!” he declares happily as Steve flaps the wings and makes soft bird sounds.

“Yeah, Petey,” he says, as he changes to a snail, “that’s a snail.” 

Peter nods, as seriously as a toddler can. He cheers, “Spider!” when Steve makes one and makes its legs crawl across the ceiling.

Steve carries on for a few minutes, smiling when Peter giggles. Eventually, Peter falls back asleep, breathing deeply. Steve brushes his curls off his forehead and presses a kiss to his hairline before carefully lifting him into his arms and then into his crib. When Peter says silent, though sniffling a little in his sleep, Steve whispers a soft goodnight to him, regardless of the sun peaking over the horizon. A glance towards the time projection on their nightstand tells him that it’s time for him to be up anyway, just a little past 6.

Steve kisses Tony on his forehead before he goes, he stirs but doesn’t wake.

Later, after Steve’s run, after he’s gone through some admin for the Young Avengers, he’s making breakfast to a playlist JARVIS made. It’s late in the morning, soft and slow, and he’s feeling relaxed and good, despite his lack of sleep. He feels arms wrap around his waist, and his husband leans into him.

“Morning, darling,” Tony murmurs into his neck, pressing kisses along the side before burying his head into the crook of his shoulder.

Steve twists himself, dropping his whisk, to hug him properly, “Morning, baby.” He kisses him on the lips, slow and sweet, until JARVIS tells them that Peter’s awake.

“I’ll get him,” Tony says, reluctantly leaving Steve’s hold with a kiss on his shoulder.

“Hey, Petey-pie,” Tony greets, lifting him up and onto his hip, “you want breakfast?”

His question is entirely ignored by his son, in favour of tapping his arc reactor and giggling. 

“Bird!” Peter declares, spreading his hands over Tony’s chest. 

Tony laughs. “Not quite, kid.”

“Bird,” Peter insists. Tony decides not to overthink it. 

By the time he gets him washed, dressed and downstairs, Steve has their breakfast ready. He catches the mug that’s slid over to him across the counter after he places Peter in his chair. 

“I love you,” he mumbles into the mug, Steve, well used to his husband’s antics just laughs and hugs him quick, with one arm around his waist, before placing their plates on the table.

Breakfast goes by alarmingly smoothly, maybe they’ve broken whatever rut Peter was in, he eats his cheerios without a fuss and drinks his milk happily, babbling at his parents. When they’re done, Steve lifts him into his arms.

“Bird!” Peter says, again, pointing at Tony.

“Steven. Have you told our son that one of his fathers, your husband, is a reptile?” Tony asks in disbelief.

Steve laughs, a light, wonderful sound that fills Tony with happiness on most days. Today, it’s just confusion (and a little (a lot) of happiness).

“He woke up last night, didn’t you?” Steve directs the last part to Peter, who shakes his head. Someone’d warned Tony about the ‘no’ phase, he just hopes that now is a minor exception.

“Yes you did,” Steve nods, laughing when Peter shakes his head again, sending his curls in a frenzy. “He woke up, couldn’t get back to sleep, so I made shadow puppets out of your light.”

Tony’s about to explode from affection and pure love he has for his family. He’s finding the recordings of that and he’s making about a million backups.

“I love you so fucking much,” Tony says, reverently, because it’s so simple and easy, but Steve thought of it, for Peter, and it just slips out. Steve just gives him a look at the expletive, but his face softens too, so Tony’s reasonably sure that he’s off the hook. He leans in for a kiss, soft and sweet, and attempts to pour everything he’s feeling though it. Peter’s just young enough that the sight of his parents kissing doesn’t really phase him. When they pull away, Tony kisses Peter’s forehead.

“I’m just a glorified torch to you, huh?” he teases lightly, smiling as Peter does. He leans into Steve’s other side, into the comfort of his husband’s arms.

Peter grins toothily up at them, eyes bright, and repeats gleefully, “Fuck!”.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! [reblog this post](https://ineffablestarkrogers.tumblr.com/post/187003392786/light-of-my-life)/leave a comment/kudo if you liked it <33


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